Removing a tire from an automobile or similar mobile apparatus is a common task performed routinely everyday. Typically, a tire is mounted to a wheel using lug nuts. A hub cap may be placed over the wheel to cover the wheel for aesthetic purposes. In order to remove a tire for repair or replacement, a tire cover or hub cap may need to be removed to access the lug nuts. A lug wrench is used to remove the lug nuts, and the tire is removed.
A typical lug wrench is shaped in the form of a rigid cross that has handles on each side of the lug wrench. The handles allow for easy application of rotational force on the lug nuts. However, as nearly anyone who has ever removed a tire on the side of a highway knows, removing a tire from an automobile can be a cumbersome process. The driver must loosen the lug nuts to change the tire usually having only a manual lug wrench available. Often a manual wrench cannot be manipulated to apply sufficient torque to break the nuts free. Another difficulty often encountered is that the user in trying to apply sufficient leverage causes the wrench to slip from the nut often damaging the faces of the nut making it even more difficult to remove the nut. Thus, the removal and replacement of a tire can be difficult. For example, the lug nuts can be frozen on the wheel. The use of corrosive salt on highways, over-tightening of lug nuts when the tire is installed, and the tire irons traditionally provided as standard equipment on most vehicles can make tire removal difficult if not impossible. Still further, the ordinary wheel has a plurality, usually five or six, of identical lug nuts secured to studs extending parallel to the wheel axis at equally arcuately spaced positions. These lug nuts are conventionally hexagonal and are usually threaded in an opposite sense from the normal direction of rotation of the wheel with which they are associated to prevent loosening during prolonged periods. Accordingly, rotation of the wheel tends to tighten the nuts, so that they become very tightly secured and require great torque to loosen.
While known prior art devices include providing a lug wrench having a longer moment arm or placing a pipe over the lug wrench handle to effectively increase the moment arm, these devices are characterized in being somewhat larger than the original equipment and do not lend themselves to compact storage in the area provided by the car manufacturer. In addition, a lug wrench having a longer moment arm increases the possibility that the lug can be over tightened on the wheel stud compounding tire replacement problems should the lug be over-tightened, breaking the stud.
Therefore, when it is necessary to remove the outside wheel e.g. when the tire of the outside wheel has gone flat, the driver of the vehicle is faced with the problem of either changing the tire himself with the manual lug wrench, or calling for help. Contrary to what might be believed, the latter choice is often made because of the difficulty in removing the lug nuts of these outside wheels. However, calling for help may involve many difficulties in itself, including finding a telephone, finding help, and waiting for that help to arrive.
For these reasons, many lug nut wrenches have disadvantages. Therefore, there is a need for a simple, reliable hand tool that provides sufficient mechanical advantage for the ordinary person to remove tight lug nuts from vehicle wheels.
While the inventor is aware of several forms of tools that can be used to remove and replace lug nuts, these tools often have a problem in operating efficiently when the lug nut is close to the ground or to some other obstacle. In such instances, the tool must be placed on the nut and rotated, but then must be removed from the nut when the tool encounters the obstacle and then replaced after being repositioned. This is cumbersome and makes the already nettlesome task even more annoying. Therefore, there is a need for a lug nut tool that is easily used and can remain easy to use even if the lug nut is in a difficult-to-reach location.